Chapter 2: The Truth Behind the Smile

Celine’s POV

His car was gone.

I stood right in the middle of the empty street. I was completely barefoot because I had kicked off my high heels two long blocks back. My feet were bleeding from the sharp rocks on the road. The thick bottom of my heavy wedding dress was torn. It dragged heavily through the dirty gray dust. Hot, sticky blood had dried on the side of my face. My lungs were burning like fire with every fast breath I took.

I looked around wildly. Nothing. Just empty parked cars and tall, quiet buildings.

And then I saw her.

Jia.

She was leaning against a shiny silver car parked right on the corner. Her arms were crossed tight over her chest. She was watching me with a little, cruel smile playing on her bright red lips. She looked completely perfect, exactly as she always did. Not a single hair was out of place. There was not even one tiny wrinkle on her tight black dress.

"Jia!" I yelled. I stumbled toward her, my tired legs shaking badly. "Did you see Kyle? Where did he go?"

"Why are you running out here, Celine?"

"I need to talk to him! I need to explain what happened."

"Explain what, exactly?" she asked slowly.

Something about her tone made me stop walking. It was way too calm. It was too smooth and easy. It sounded exactly like she had been rehearsing this exact moment in front of a mirror all morning.

"The terrible video," I gasped, holding my chest. "Someone set me up, Jia. That night at my bachelorette party, someone put drugs in my drink and I..."

"Oh, Celine." She tilted her head to the side. The pity on her face was so thick and fake it looked painted on. "You still don't get it, do you?"

My mouth went completely dry.

"Get what? What are you talking about?"

"Kyle doesn't love you." She let the harsh words hang in the hot air like dark smoke. "He never loved you. Never."

"You don't know what you are saying."

"He has been in love with me since the very first day we met. That little video you are crying about? That was his brilliant idea. It was his plan."

"No," I whispered. "No, you are lying to me."

"He needed a good reason to call off the wedding without looking like the bad guy to the public. He wanted everyone to hate you, not him."

My weak knees buckled. I reached out and grabbed the warm metal side of her car just to keep myself from falling flat on the ground.

"You are lying to me, Jia! He loves me!"

"Am I?" She stepped closer to me. The fake sweetness was totally gone from her beautiful face. It was like someone had wiped it off with a dirty cloth. What was left underneath was cold, sharp, and very ugly. "Let me tell you the truth. Do you really think a rich, hot man like him wanted a boring, plain girl like you?"

"Stop talking," I cried.

"No, I want you to hear this," she said softly, her voice turning incredibly hot and teasing. "You don't even know what he actually likes. You don't know how to please a real man. He told me you just lie there in bed like a dead fish. But with me? Oh, Celine, he is an absolute animal. He likes it rough and wild."

I covered my ears with my shaking hands. "Shut up!"

She grabbed my wrists and pulled my hands down with shocking strength. "He bites my neck until I bleed. He begs me for more. He groans my name so loud when I ride him. He told me my body drives him crazy and he can't get enough of my taste. He never touched you like that, did he? Because he never wanted you. He only wanted me."

"Why?" I sobbed, tears spilling down my dirty cheeks. "Why are you doing this to me?"

"Let me spell it out for you, since you are too stupid to figure it out on your own. You were never supposed to have any of this. Not the family name, not the money, not the man."

"What are you saying?"

"You are adopted, Celine."

I stopped breathing. The whole busy world around me went perfectly silent.

"What?" I choked out.

"You are not a real Blackwood. You never were. You are just some trash they picked up."

It felt like she had reached right into my chest and squeezed my heart until it stopped beating entirely.

"Mom and Dad took you in because Grandpa made them do it. And they hated every single second of it."

"That is not true!"

"Yes, it is! They hated you. But you were always so desperate to be loved, you never even noticed the truth right in front of your stupid face."

My mind started racing back in time. Every single memory I had was crumbling apart in my hands right now. Every birthday where my gifts were so much smaller than my brother Marco's gifts. Every family dinner where my mother, Lucia, told me to serve the hot food to the guests instead of sitting down to eat with everyone else. Every single time my father, Enzo, looked right through me like I was just a piece of broken furniture in the hallway.

I always thought they were just very strict parents. I thought I just needed to try a little harder. I thought I needed to be a better daughter to earn their love and respect.

But there was absolutely nothing to earn. The game was rigged against me from the very start.

"That's right," Jia said, smiling widely.

She watched the terrible realization hit my face and she truly enjoyed it. I could clearly see the deep pleasure in her dark eyes. It was bright and sick.

"You see it now, don't you?" she asked.

"You knew this whole time," I whispered.

"Everything you thought was yours actually belongs to me. The big house, the family money, the famous last name. Kyle. All of it. Mine."

"You vicious little snake."

"Call me whatever you want, Celine. It does not change anything." She flipped her long, perfect hair over her shoulder and faked a loud yawn. "You should probably go somewhere and die quietly now. Save everyone the deep embarrassment of looking at you."

I stared at her smiling face.

Suddenly, deep rage flooded through my entire body. It was so hot and so violent it burned away all the cold shock. It burned away the deep grief and the burning humiliation. It left absolutely nothing inside me but pure, white, blinding fury.

"I will expose every last one of you," I said.

My voice came out very low and totally steady. It didn't even sound like my own voice anymore.

"What did you say?" Jia asked, frowning slightly.

"I will expose every single lie. I will expose every dirty scheme and every dark secret this family has buried in the dirt. I will burn the Blackwood name to the ground."

Something flickered fast in Jia's dark eyes. Fear. Just for one quick second. Then it was gone, hidden behind her cold smile.

"No," she said softly. She smiled again, but this time the smile did not reach her eyes. "You won't."

"Just watch me."

"You won't. Because by tomorrow morning, everyone in this city is going to believe that Celine Blackwood killed herself out of shame."

"You are insane."

"A poor, broken girl who couldn't handle the scandal."

Before I could even move a single muscle, before my tired brain could process what she just said, she stepped forward fast.

She raised both of her hands and shoved me hard right in the center of my chest.

I lost my balance completely. I stumbled backward on my bare, bleeding feet. I fell backward right into the middle of the busy street.

The horn came first.

Then the screech of tires.

Then the impact.

It hit me like a freight train. My body left the ground and for one terrible, weightless second, I was flying. Then I slammed into the asphalt and the world cracked open.

My beautiful wedding dress was soaked red. I could feel the hot blood spreading under me, warm and very thick. I tried to move my fingers but they wouldn't listen to me. I tried to breathe but my lungs were full of something wet and extremely heavy. I tasted copper in my mouth.

I'm not going to die here. I'm not going to let her win.

But my vision was already going dark at the very edges, closing in like a long, dark tunnel. The terrible pain was fading into cold nothingness.

The last thing I heard before the blackness swallowed me was the sound of a heavy car door opening. Expensive shoes clicking on the hard pavement. Two voices speaking over me.

"Sir, we're too late. She's barely breathing."

A pause. Then a second voice, deeper, colder, laced with a heavy authority that made the air feel heavier.

"Give her a proper burial."

And then there was nothing.